


tattered

by fanfictiongreenirises



Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [19]
Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Don't copy to another site, Fire, Gen, Good Bro Jason Todd, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, no beta we typo like idiots who write and post at 3.30am, smoke inhalation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24201580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictiongreenirises/pseuds/fanfictiongreenirises
Summary: Jason and Dick and a burning building.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622032
Comments: 24
Kudos: 390
Collections: Dick & Jason, everybody loves dick





	tattered

**Author's Note:**

> For the "Fire" square on my Batman Bingo card. For anon on tumblr who wanted Red Hood rescuing and/or taking care Dick ^~^
> 
> I have no idea how in character Jason is in this so feel free to give me concrit 
> 
> Disclaimer: if I owned DC I wouldn't have to worry about characters being ooc

THIS FANFICTION IS HOSTED ON **ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN** , WHERE YOU CAN READ IT FOR **FREE**. IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON A DIFFERENT WEBSITE, IT WAS POSTED THERE **WITHOUT** THE AUTHOR’S CONSENT.

Jason cursed as he dodged a wall of fire, his back hitting a doorframe as he ran through the dingy hallway and into the depths of the building. He knew the blueprints for this place off by heart, but it was a different matter entirely when there were walls crumbling around him and floorboards disappearing, entire sections closed off as the fire raged.

He had to get lower and get out, before the flames did. Going up would only trap him, even though descending risked the entire building collapsing on top of him.

Sweat was dripping down his body as he darted in and out of doors and halls, trying to navigate in this minefield of a building. This would’ve all been so much easier if it’d been a warehouse – whoever had designed this place had apparently tried their best to make it as cramped as possible. Walls cropped up everywhere, and fire burned across all of them faster than anyone could’ve fathomed.

Jason wouldn’t have spotted him if he hadn’t tripped over the body on the ground. There was so much smoke that it was hard to see much of anything, and the fire was casting strange shadows; even his lenses had their limits.

Was it someone part of the gang? He hadn’t spotted anyone up here since that one idiot had dropped his lighter, but there was always a chance that he was passing past rooms of people trapped and unconscious. 

“Hey, I’m gonna get you out of here, a’ight?” Jason started saying, crouching down and feeling for a pulse.

There was something familiar about the figure and his confusion skyrocketed.

“ _Dick?”_ He prodded Dick’s neck a little too harshly, praying to find a pulse.

Dick stirred, head coming up groggily before he broke into a fit of coughs, curling to the side with the force of them.

Neither of them had time to wait for Dick to catch his breath – not that he was likely to, with this smoke. He went to yank Dick up, but caught a snag: Dick’s arm was duck-taped to the radiator.

Jason couldn’t believe he hadn’t spotted it before, but in his defence, there was _so_ much smoke. He growled, in equal parts frustration and anger at Dick's captors who had left him with no way to get out as the building went up in flames. He sucked in his last lungful of filtered air before yanking off the helmet and shoving it over Dick’s head. He reached under his suit, ripping a long strip off his undershirt and tying it around his face. He thanked every deity - including Wonder Woman - that he'd worn the domino mask underneath. The lenses, however flimsier than the ones in the helmet, were better than nothing.

Dick flailed around a little, free hand coming up to claw at his head before stilling. His coughing had stopped, which was a relief – Jason shuddered at the thought of all those _germs_. Jason was halfway through slashing through the tape, but they’d wrapped several layers of it.

“Jay,” Dick rasped. Jason winced at the sound, the grating hoarseness audible even with the mask on.

“Don’t talk,” he said. “What the fuck are you even doing here?”

Dick huffed. “I have to talk ‘f you want an answer,” he said. “I had a lead about a building on this block. This was the fishiest, so I started off with it. Didn’t pan out. Got caught _and_ it was the wrong operation.”

His voice barely sounded like a voice when he was done speaking, and he hacked another few coughs out just as Jason freed his arm.

“C’mon, we gotta go,” he said, glancing up at the hallway.

Grappling down the building would be disastrous – too unstable, and no other building close enough to hop onto the roof of, especially now with Dick. Jason shoved his shoulder under Dick’s, pulling him to his side and gripping his belt to hold him up.

Dick’s feet scrambled beneath him before finding purchase. They walked through the doorway, into the bright orange hall. Jason was now feeling the loss of his helmet more acutely than he recalled ever having before.

Dick tapped Jason’s shoulder. “Stairwell,” he said on the tail end of a wheeze. “Left.”

Jason, who had before this been doing his best to re-centre himself, suddenly saw the map flash before his eyes. Without a word, he marched the two of them forward, carrying most of Dick’s weight when he wasn’t moving fast enough.

The stairwell was mercifully empty of both flames and mobsters. The smoke went out of its way to more than make up for it.

“Wait,” Dick said, fingers gripping a strap on Jason’s jacket. “Jay, stop—”

“What?” Jason asked, stopping them in the middle of the staircase.

Dick was searching under the helmet for the catch that would release it, fingers uncoordinated and sloppy as he fumbled to take it off.

“What’re you _doing_?” Jason snapped, whacking his hand away from it. “You _need_ that, idiot.”

“One of us,” Dick coughed, “needs to be able to keep a clear head in this. To get us out. Obviously not me.”

“You need to keep fucking _breathing_.” Jason pulled Dick’s arm back around his shoulders roughly, using the utility belt again to drag him along. It really was Dick's own fault that his suit had nothing to grip.

“Stubborn asshole,” Dick murmured. “Why were you here?”

“Had a lead,” Jason said. They both knew that speaking would make the smoke inhalation worse, but it was comforting, in a way. “Damn documents I was after got burned.”

“Put Tim on it. If there’s a digital copy, he’ll—” This coughing fit made them stop, Dick bending over as he tried to bring himself under control.

“No more talking,” Jason said grimly.

He was considering putting Dick over his shoulder and just carrying him out of here – it would probably go a lot faster than their pace right now.

Three more stories to go until the ground floor. Jason cursed as he felt the heat of the flames even before he saw the glow.

“Stay here,” he ordered, letting go of Dick and jumping down to the door that stood between them and the wall of fire climbing upwards.

He had to make sure they wouldn’t be greeted with fire as soon as they opened the door. Dick wouldn’t be able to move back up the stairs fast enough if they were.

Jason yanked open the door. Even before he’d gotten a look inside, he knew the fire hadn’t quite reached this section – the door handle wasn’t searing to the touch.

He turned to call Dick down, but Dick was standing right next to him, body tilted around slightly to watch Jason’s back. Jason swallowed down the rivalling emotions of annoyance at his words being so easily ignored and something a little softer at the sight, instead yanking Dick through the door and shutting it behind them.

That path was closed to them now, regardless of what they found in here.

_Left, then two rights_ , chanted the voice in Jason’s head that sounded an awful lot like Bruce. Sometimes it changed into Tim, of all people; he didn’t know which was worse.

Dick was rasping in breaths, the helmet letting out a fizzy noise every time he did so. They were halfway to the other end of the room, the side with the giant windows that they could jump out of, when the roof collapsed right before them.

Jason, a step in front, threw himself backwards and took Dick down with him as he leapt as far out of the way as he could. The wind was knocked out of him as he landed awkwardly, and he lay there for a moment, dazed.

There were hands tugging at him. “Jay, c’mon,” Dick was saying, and then, “oh, _shit_ —” The hands were now patting down one of his legs, and Jason was rolling instinctively to put out the fire before he’d even registered that he was on _fire_.

Jason got to his feet. “There’s—”

“We gotta go through it,” Dick said grimly. “No other way.”

He was right, but Jason didn’t have to like it.

“On three,” he said.

Dick nodded. “Three,” he said. If Jason hadn't been half expecting it, the minuscule reference to another fight together a lifetime ago, he would've been taken by surprise. Especially considering that Dick was swaying where he stood.

Jason kept a step behind him, making sure he didn’t fall behind. But it seemed like Dick was expending as much energy as he could muster in one explosive burst, running as well as he could, because he was _fast_.

They broke through the glass at the exact same moment, and Jason had a moment of panic when he couldn’t find his grapple gun in the normal position. But then instinct took over and he had the backup in his hand, already firing a line.

The moment of impact when it landed and stuck in position reverberated in his bones, and he swung himself at the wall. It was lucky he remembered Dick was firing at probably less than half capacity, because otherwise he would’ve grappled straight down instead of seeing Dick land awkwardly on the wall.

Jason grabbed him around the waist. “Let go,” he said, and Dick did. The surprise of it made him falter for a moment before he moved back into motion, grunting at the additional weight of Dick.

Despite how lithe Dick was, he was entirely muscle, and _heavy_. Jason’s arms were straining as he fought to make sure they didn’t fall down two stories.

That was when the line snapped, and the two of them were in freefall. Jason shoved Dick away from him and tried to roll into the fall. It was lucky that they were only about a floor up – this was nothing, under normal circumstances.

Hitting the ground was _awkward,_ trying to soften the blow for Dick. Adrenaline was keeping him going for now, but Jason knew without a doubt that he’d be feeling this night for the next week to come.

He looked around for Dick, spotting a dark figure on the concrete a few metres away. Dick was struggling to his feet; Jason staggered over to him as he got up.

“Where’s your ride?” he asked as they made their way as far from the crumbling building.

“Uh,” Dick said.

“Took too long,” Jason told him. “We’re using mine.”

Neither of them spoke as they stumbled back to Jason’s bike. He frowned at Dick as Dick tried to give him his helmet back – _“no way in hell am I putting that back on after you coughed up who fucking knows what in there”_ – and telling him to hold on.

Dick was breathing heavier than usual for as long as halfway through the ride back to Jason’s closest safehouse. If he’d had to get them to Dick’s place, he doubted they would’ve made it. 

Dick was tapping his chest. Jason pulled over, and he stumbled off the bike. His hands were scrabbling at the helmet again, and this time Jason helped him take it off. He was wheezing beneath it.

“Can’t breathe,” he got out, trying to draw in air.

“Fuck,” Jason said, running back to the bike. He ripped open the compartments, hands pawing through its contents before coming up with the inhaler he kept there. “Here.”

He shoved it between Dick’s lips, hand holding it in place.

“Dickface, focus,” he said. “On three. _Actually_ three this time.” Dick was doing his best to pay attention, but Jason could still see the tendrils of panic that lined his face. “Hey. Follow my breathing.”

Dick shot him an annoyed look, as if to say _you think I’m not trying to?_ but did his best anyway. Jason pressed down on the inhaler, and after what felt like absolutely forever, Dick’s painful gasps evened out slightly. Enough to pull him up and onto the bike, because he needed treatment that they didn’t have on the side of the road.

“No helmet,” Dick rasped. His voice sounded even worse now.

Jason fixed a look upon him. “I’m not lugging your half-conscious ass around without a helmet,” he snapped.

“Can’t breathe in it,” Dick said, seeming to stand straighter as he argued back. It figured that a fight would be the thing he needed to pull up his reserves of energy.

“That’s completely psychological,” Jason said, but he was softening already and they both knew it. "It's great for breathing."

“Maybe you coughed in it too,” Dick said as he put the helmet in its compartment. “Maybe I don’t wanna breathe in _your_ spit.”

“It’s my helmet. I get to cough in there if I want.” Jason swung his leg around his bike, waiting until Dick’s arms were securely around his waist before he started up the engine. “You let go, you explain to B why you were riding around without a helmet on.”

Dick huffed against his back, words lost to the wind as Jason pulled away from the curb.

They made it back to his safehouse, the journey taking much longer than Jason wanted. Now that the adrenaline from the night was weaning off, he was feeling all the places the fire had marked him, sore muscles and bruises all making themselves known simultaneously. He was going to be so stiff in the morning.

True to his word, Dick kept a tight grip around Jason’s torso the entire time, even as he slumped more and more onto him. Jason wondered at the picture they made, Red Hood with Nightwing attached to him like a baby monkey.

Walking up the stairs to his floor was another feat. Each scrape of fabric over his legs and other various burns hurt like nothing else. They had to stop three times on the way up to Jason’s apartment on the second floor.

“Who do I need to call to pick you up?” he asked, shrugging off his jacket and removing his shoes.

Dick had stumbled over to the sink, leaving sooty, muddy prints as he went, and was filling up a glass. “No one,” he said. “Just…gimme an hour and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, sure, Tom Cruise.” He rooted around in a cupboard for the first aid kit, placing it on the coffee table with more finesse than his current state warranted.

“No, really,” Dick said, after a few sips of the water. “I have work at five. Can I borrow your bike?”

Jason stopped moving for a moment as he tried to piece together the words that had come out of Dick’s mouth. Nothing logical jumped out at him.

“Five like,” he glanced at the clock, “in two hours, five? Five in the _morning_ , five?”

Dick nodded. He walked over to Jason, handing him a glass of water as he half sat, half collapsed on the couch beside him.

“Costume off,” Dick said to Jason, tugging off his own shoes. “And yeah, five in the morning.”

“There’s no way you’re going in to work at five,” Jason said. He gulped down the water, the cool liquid soothing down his raw throat. “Call in sick.”

“I’ll be fine,” Dick said with a shrug. “Lift your leg up here.”

“Oxygen mask first,” Jason said shortly, nudging over the other thing he’d pulled out before sitting down.

Dick obliged, a testament to how bad his lungs really were that he did without saying a word. He nodded to Jason pointedly, and Jason scowled at him.

“I’m not stripping,” he said.

Dick looked at him flatly, lifting up the mask so he could speak. “C’mon, we gotta treat the burns. Or we can cut the legs off your suit, if you want.”

“Fine.” Cutting through the material would be much worse than just taking them off.

The burns weren’t that bad – his suit had protected him from the worst of the flames, instead just requiring ointment. He batted away Dick's hands, even as Dick thrusted another oxygen mask at him.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that Dick had been avoiding taking off his own suit this whole time.

“Your turn.”

Dick’s mouth twisted, but he complied, putting the mask back over his mouth. He hissed as the suit slid off, the costume shrinking to half its size the second it was off his body. Even looking at it made Jason feel claustrophobic.

Dick’s burns were only slightly worse than Jason’s, but on top of his first- and second-degree burns, he had knife wounds that he’d apparently neglected to mention to Jason, and head wound that was close to needing stitches.

Jason worked quickly and quietly, breathing through the masks and the ticking clock in the kitchen the only sounds in the apartment.

“Thanks,” Dick said, rising to his feet and teetering slightly.

Jason didn’t reply, disappearing into the bedroom to grab clothes for both of them, tossing sweatpants and a T-shirt onto the couch for Dick. Neither of their coordination was up to standards – the shirt was well on its way to sliding down to the floor before Dick grabbed it.

Dick was putting on his boots when Jason re-emerged from the bathroom.

“The hell are you going?”

Dick didn’t look up, too busy trying not to lose his balance. “Home. Left my uniform there, even though this place is closer, honestly—”

Jason was going to punch him. If that knocked him out and got him to stay put for a solid half day, then he’d be killing two birds with one stone. “Sit the fuck back down, or I call Bruce.”

Dick huffed. “He’d be a hypocrite to say _anything_ ,” he said, but he stopped trying to tug on his boot.

“What, is it _me_ that’s the issue here?” Jason asked heatedly. He barely even meant the words; he just needed something to get a rise out of Dick. But the question still stood – maybe it _was_ an excuse for Dick to leave. Maybe he’d screwed up at something and they hadn’t bothered to tell him about it, instead just hoping to ignore him until he got the message. Jason tried to think when one of the bat brood had last contacted him, but his brain was fuzzy with fatigue to want to cooperate. “Is work just the bullshit excuse you’re using to get away?”

Dick exhaled loudly, stifling a cough with his elbow. “Of course not, Jay,” he said, looking somewhat guilty. “I'm sorry if it came across like that. I really do have work to get to.” His words sounded like a rehearsed apology and excuse; Jason chose to ignore that.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “I will call _Alfred_ if you don’t get your ass in the spare bed.”

“Pulling out the big guns now, are we?” Dick didn’t make a move, and neither did Jason.

Next time he was just leaving Dick there, he decided. He’d get out of the building before half of it had gone up in flames, before it burnt away enough to begin collapsing on top of him. He’d drive home and shower the soot and smoke off, and then settle under the covers and sleep in peace knowing that he could’ve been arguing with this mule of a brother instead.

Dick dropped the shoe and yanked off the other one as well, apparently giving in. “Fine,” he said. “But you better not call Alfred.”

“Too late,” Jason lied, satisfaction creeping into him at the sound of Dick's muttered curses at the words. There was no way he wasn’t calling Alfred in the morning. He walked into the guest bedroom, eyeing the bed and hoping this wasn’t the safehouse with the dodgy mattress that may or may not have bedbugs. “Towels are in the cabinet in the bathroom. If you sleep without showering, you better wash those sheets till they don’t stink of smoke.”

Dick shifted beside him. “Thanks,” he said. “For the save tonight. I forgot to say before. I’d probably be barbecue by now.”

Jason let the words slide over him; he didn’t have the mental capacity to examine them any closer now. He’d turn them over in his mind in the morning – if he ever did, really – when the bone-deep weariness had left.

“Yeah, well,” he said awkwardly, coughing slightly to cover up the complete lack of response.

Dick collapsed on top of the covers, curling up onto his less injured side. Jason waited until his breathing had evened out for an extended length of time before silently nicking Dick’s phone from where he’d placed it, turning off the power so the alarm he’d no doubt set wouldn’t ring.

He half fell into the bed in the other room, the one that was technically his but, like all his newer safehouses, had no personal effects. All that was in this place was emergency supplies and a few pairs of clothes. He'd probably regret the lack of food in a few hours time, when he woke with a rumbling stomach.

His mind was still too keyed up to sleep yet; instead, he texted Alfred, knowing the man never minded no matter how late it got. Finally, he sent a quick message to Tim, asking about the documents. A little bubble appeared, indicating that Tim was typing, but Jason was out before it came through.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! My card's in the series description if you want to request a square (I have about 6? left now 0.0) and I'm always up for a chat on [tumblr](https://fanfictiongreenirises.tumblr.com/) ^~^


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